Meet the Artist Richard Meitner

Directed by Derek Klein

Falling from Grace

Book by Richard Meitner, ‘2003’

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In 2003 I wrote, and together with Stevan Boland, gave form to- and published this book, “Falling from Grace”. The book was presented concurrently with an exhibition I had in the Braggiotti Gallery in Amsterdam. The images in the book are distorted and dreamlike photos of a number of the objects I was showing in that exhibition. Book and exhibition were at the time my answer to a question very often asked of artists, one that has continuously plagued me throughout my career, namely “what does your art mean?”

So in 2003 I set out to see what would happen* if I offered clear answers to that question. With this book, I suggest that the objects in the show were visions from recurring dreams I had, ones I then gave form to in real objects. The text offers the meanings I derived from those dreams, delegates those meanings to the objects I subsequently made, and shares that meaning with others. My purpose with the book was to find out what would happen if I could offer for myself and others, simple, comfortable answers to the question of meaning in my Art.

In truth, throughout my career, my conviction has always been that trying to analyze, distill, and verbalize unambiguous meaning in art makes no sense at all. In fact, I believe that attempting to do that is opposed to the very purpose for which Art, in all its forms, both exists and carries importance .

* with the clarity of hindsight, I can now answer that question, “what happens when artists offer clear explanations for the meaning of their artworks?” .

It has been my distinct privilege since 2004 to be a member of the innovative research group VICARTE, housed on the campus for Science and Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal. That research group, among many of its broad range of accomplishments to date, fosters a Master’s degree program in The Art and Science of Glass and Ceramics on that campus, a joint project with the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Lisbon. To learn more about Vicarte…